12 Restoring Color
RESTORING COLOR
THE NEXT DAY was grey. I mentally retreated back to the star front where nothing mattered.
I had spent the last few days on vacation, enjoying my time here at the Crystal Palace, entertaining notions of resuming a romance with my long-lost love, but now I’d regained a galactic perspective.
I was just another soldier, another pawn, another cog in the machine.
Any chance for a great sweeping romance to save the day and let peace reign victorious and love triumphant was dashed by reality.
I was too broken by the war to accept Astrid’s love.
The Emperor was too elevated to accept the attentions of an enemy officer.
Our love could not be. I would serve out my time here, then return to the front to resume my fruitless military career.
At some place between New Melbourne and the capital, I would die.
It was not worth worrying about – it was a certainty.
Facing my inevitable demise, it was hard to care about Prince Aureli’s morning briefing, or Boleslaw’s interrogation of the previous night’s events, beyond fending off her probing questions with monosyllabic answers until she grew frustrated and drifted beyond my perception.
I simply had to go through the motions until the universal mechanism decided my time had expired.
My final bout on the tilting field was less exciting than the first two.
My opponent, a middle-aged cavalier from some defunct League nation, traded blows with me for a quarter of an hour.
He was skilled, but in a tournament fashion.
I could tell he would not have survived long on the battlefield.
Neither of us unseated the other, but when the final bell rang, the knight had scored more hits than I had.
Still, I had put up a good fight and not embarrassed my country.
To tell the truth, I was relieved. Most of the riders advancing to the final melee were demon princes, and after the debacle with Gretsky, I did not relish the idea of even mock combat against them.
Tilly was disappointed. She thought we could take the noble and wanted another crack at him.
The moment I dismounted, she pulled into her stable stall nose-forward without so much as allowing me an after-action systems check.
She probably thought I’d pulled my cuts.
In a way, she was right. I could have engaged the aristocrat more aggressively, like I had yesterday, or when the Imps or their allies attacked one of my supply depots.
“Maybe we could have taken him, but it would have been a nasty fight. In this diplomatic battleground, I’d rather have a clean defeat than a messy victory.” Not that it mattered either way, but I might as well cause as few diplomatic eddies as possible on my trajectory to the grave.
Tilly gave a derisive cough from her exhaust system to show exactly what she felt about that. Tilly liked to win, but more importantly, she hated to lose.
“This isn’t the battlefield, Tilly. This is diplomacy. Such vicious tactics make more enemies than allies.” Prince Aureli’s words still buzzed in my ear. In response, Tilly turned to more perfectly align away from me and lowered her docking clamp.
“Tilly, we don’t have time for this,” I said to the recalcitrant machine’s rear cowling. She didn’t respond. I didn’t want to leave her in this state, lest she take her frustration out on some unsuspecting stable mechanic.
“Are you arguing with your steed?”
I whirled. Princess Marie-Christina stood in the stable’s main bay, wearing a derby outfit dominated by a massive hat, a navy-blue affair with a wide swooping brim and the crown completely obscured by soft feathers and silk rosettes.
Had she not paired it with a close-fitting high-waisted jacket and ankle-length pleated skirt, it would have looked ridiculous, but on her, it looked classy.
Most importantly, her presence brought color back into my world. Princess Marie was separate from the inevitable war, more real.
“Princess, what brings you here?” I asked, conscious of how sweaty and dusty I was.
She blushed and lowered her head, completely concealing her face beneath the brim of her hat. “You promised to introduce me to your hoversteed. I thought, since you would already be in the stables and everyone else is watching the last few tilts, now would be a good time.”
I rubbed my chin, streaking gritty sweat across my face. “I’d normally agree with you, but Tilly and I are having a bit of a disagreement right now.”
“Is she going rogue?” the princess asked, her eyes suddenly wide with fear.
‘Going rogue’ was the common phrase for a Synthetic Intelligence deciding to kill its makers.
It was rare now, but many early military SIs had suffered from murderous faults.
It came from being programmed to kill people, I suspected.
I hooked a thumb at Tilly in a gesture meant to dismiss Marie’s fears. “Oh no, nothing like that. Tilly’s upset with me that we didn’t win the tilt.”
Princess Marie gave a shy smile. “But you two flew beautifully. I do not know how you could have done better.”
Tilly gave her mechanical snort again, and it was my turn to blush. “I could’ve used tactics more like yesterday and the day before.”
“I see,” the princess said, then considered. “Well, those days, you fought ungentlemanly opponents, so it was right that you fought in an ungentlemanly way. Today you fought with honor. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Tilly snorted once more, but less forcefully this time. It seemed she liked what the princess was saying.
I leaned down, putting my hands on my knees. “How about it, Tilly? Want to come say hello?” Tilly didn’t move.
“Did you tell her I’m an ally?” Marie asked, leaning down beside me.
I hesitated, removing my riding gloves. “Tilly doesn’t really get ‘allies.’ She has enemies, not-enemies, and me, and most not-enemies she thinks are plotting against her anyways.”
“Whatever caused her to become so suspicious?” Marie asked.
I straightened, fighting off the fear as memories of Kakoda flooded my mind.
If I felt too much negativity, my emotions would shut down, and I didn’t want to go grey before the princess.
“Tilly’s Intelligence emerged in a rough situation.
We don’t talk about it in front of her. It makes her anxious. ” It made me anxious, too.
Princess Marie’s eyes grew wide again. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know…”
“It’s all right,” I assured her. Then an idea came to me, a way to distract myself as much as my steed. “Tilly, if you don’t come out, I can’t install any of your upgrades.”
One of Tilly’s rear aerovanes twitched in interest.
“I can’t install these myself. I’ll need help.
Come out, and the nice princess will help me upgrade your repulsor plate.
Won’t that be nice?” Tilly didn’t move. Damn.
She always liked flying high. I would have thought the lift upgrade would have done it.
“No? How about your power cells? I have a nice quad-RTG cell I could install, give you a big boost in power and speed?”
Tilly made a deploring warble. “Ah, right. We’ve already maxed out your current speed. So…” I went over to the stack of crates sitting next to Tilly’s stall, selected one, turned on its anti-grav sled, and towed it out. “How about the princess and I install a nice new 18-plug rotary thrust coil?”
Tilly’s docking clamp disengaged with a clunk, and she drifted backwards so her rear sensors could get a better look. I pushed the lid off the crate so Tilly could see inside.
Princess Marie stepped behind me, putting her lips to my ear and whispering, “But I don’t know anything about your hoversteed’s mechanics. I’ve never done anything more than basic maintenance before.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t really need the help,” I whispered back. “I need to socialize Tilly with other people more, show her they’re not all bad. Since you’re willing, I figure she can socialize with you.”
A few minutes later, Tilly’s front cowl was off and I was elbow-deep in her engine, removing her old thrust coil.
Marie sat next to me, handing me tools and engaging in polite conversation with my hoversteed.
I plugged Tilly’s computer into a monitor readout so she could communicate even after I isolated her primary processor from her engine.
Unfortunately, that meant I only got half the conversation, and judging from the princess’s bemused follow-up questions, the stories Tilly told did not paint me in the most flattering light.
“Really? How incoherent? Not an intelligible word? Draped over your saddle? How did you get him home without him falling off? I didn’t think your docking clamps had that much manual dexterity.”
“They don’t normally,” I chimed in. “I replaced the front clamp with a pair of fine-manipulator arms so Tilly could have a bit more freedom to explore the world.”
“That was kind of you,” Marie said.
“Yes, it was. You hear that, Tilly?”
I couldn’t see the holoscreen where Tilly’s response was displayed, but Marie laughed.
“Captain Boylan, your hoversteed is simply delightful,” the princess exclaimed.
“Are you certain we’re talking about the same hoversteed?” I replied, twisting an electrical connector into place. Marie laughed again, but her comment elicited a twinge of guilt. “I would have brought you to see her earlier. It’s just, everything’s been so hectic since I came here.”
“I understand. We all have our commitments,” the princess replied, and when I slid out from under Tilly, she was smiling warmly at me. “Do you have any for tonight’s dinner?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” I said, standing up and wiping my hands clean.
“Then you must join me at my table tonight to discuss developments with the Emperor.”
Despite her continued smile, I was suddenly apprehensive. How much did she know? How closely was she keeping tabs on me? Had she figured out my secret, or was this an innocent continuation of our agreement four nights ago?
“It would be my pleasure,” I replied, not able to think of a viable excuse to stay away. Besides, a dinner with the princess might keep me away from demon princes for a day, and Marie was pleasant company.
“All right, Tilly. Let’s get you reconnected and see how it works.” I pulled the bypass from Tilly’s communication monitor and flipped the switch to reconnect her brain with her body. “How’s it feel?”
Immediately, Tilly revved, a loud, powerful, snarling roar of her engine. Her aerovanes twitched excitedly. I could tell she wanted to go for a fly.
Turning to the princess, I explained. “I think I need to take Tilly for a test flight, but this was good. I think she really took to you.”
“And I to her. She is a magnificent machine,” Princess Marie said, stroking Tilly’s cowling with affection. In response, Tilly quieted her engine to a pleased purr.
“If this keeps up, Tilly might let you ride her,” I said, indicating the space on the saddle where a second rider could sit behind me. Tilly grew quiet, but did not immediately give a negative reaction – a very good sign.
Possibly even better was how Princess Marie leaned forwards and, still smiling, said, “That would be nice.”
I smiled back, rosy warmth spilling from my heart. It was nice to feel valued by someone I respected.
It was nice to feel anything pleasant at all.